She nodded. ‘But I didn’t know anyone would be killed. That poor man on the houseboat –’
‘– was meant to be me,’ Paul intervened. ‘When did you first realise your brother had been lying to you?’
‘When I reached St Moritz. The night we arrived in St Moritz my brother came to my room. He was angry and he’d been drinking. He said the most awful things, about Carl and that wretched Freda Sands. He said that Carl had been blackmailing Julia Carrington and that the blackmailing had to continue.’ She was near to tears now, but she managed to smile. ‘I’m glad Freda Sands broke her leg. I wish it had been her neck! Carl would never have been unfaithful to me if she hadn’t encouraged him.’
Paul sighed with relief. He had been worried about telling Margaret where Freda Sands fitted into the case. ‘You were talking about Lonsdale,’ he murmured, ‘the night he came to your room.’
‘Maurice said that if I didn’t help he would throw suspicion on to me. He was horrible, just like he used to be when we were children together.’
‘Well, he did throw suspicion on to you,’ said Steve, ‘the moment you left St Moritz.’
Margaret looked up in surprise. ‘He did?’
‘He pretended to commit suicide and leave a note behind, blaming you for everything.’
Margaret began crying quietly to herself.
‘It was all made more complicated,’ Paul continued, ‘because Vince Langham was blundering about, getting in the way generally and trying a spot of blackmail himself. He wanted Julia to make another film with him and he didn’t mind using the book as moral persuasion. If Julia had said yes I imagine Vince would have sued the publishers and done his damnedest to get the book back.’
‘My brother,’ Margaret said between tears, ‘was worried about Vince Langham. He said he was going to do something…’
‘He did. First of all he dropped Vince’s cigarette case in the snow, and then he attacked him with a knife. I doubt whether Vince will ever risk writing a book again.’
Steve smiled and asked what would happen now to Too Young to Die. Would it be up to Wallace and Sainsbury to decide –?
‘It doesn’t matter any more,’ Danny Clayton interrupted. ‘I telephoned Julia this morning and told her everything that has happened. She’s decided to tell the truth about herself, about Hollywood and the fire and everything.’
Paul was surprised. ‘You mean she really is going to write her autobiography?’
‘No.’ Danny laughed. ‘Julia can’t even write a letter to her stockbroker. No, she’s been negotiating with World Magazine in New York, and they want you to write the story of Julia Carrington.’
‘Me?’ Paul laughed apologetically. ‘No no, that’s quite impossible. I’m a novelist, and besides –’ He caught the girl with the tape recorder looking suddenly respectful. ‘No, I’m sorry. I don’t really approve of facts. I leave those things to Charlie Vosper.’
The tape recorder was running again, and downstairs the telephone began to ring.
‘Would this mean,’ Steve asked Danny Clayton, ‘that we would have to return to St Moritz?’
Danny nodded. ‘I’m afraid it would. But you can stay with us, and Julia isn’t as bad to live with as –’
‘He’ll write it!’
Paul was about to argue when Kate Balfour poked her head round the door. ‘It’s World Magazine on the telephone, Mr Temple.’
‘I refuse to speak to them!’
‘But they’re ringing from New York –’
‘Leave it to me,’ said Steve. ‘Don’t worry, darling, Danny and I will look after everything. You carry on with your quality interview.’
Paul turned in despair to the girl. ‘All right, you were asking me about Dr Leavis…’
About the Author
Francis Henry Durbridge was born in Hull, Yorkshire, in 1912 and was educated at Bradford Grammar School. He was encouraged at an early age to write by his English teacher and went on to read English at Birmingham University. At the age of twenty one he sold a play to the BBC and continued to write following his graduation whilst working as a stockbroker’s clerk.
In 1938, he created the character Paul Temple, a crime novelist and detective. Many others followed and they were hugely successful until the last of the series was completed in 1968. In 1969, the Paul Temple series was adapted for television and four of the adventures prior to this, had been adapted for cinema, albeit with less success than radio and TV. Francis Durbridge also wrote for the stage and continued doing so up until 1991, when Sweet Revenge was completed. Additionally, he wrote over twenty other well received novels, most of which were on the general subject of crime. The last, Fatal Encounter, was published after his death in 1998.
Also in this series
Send for Paul Temple
Paul Temple and the Front Page Men
News of Paul Temple
Paul Temple Intervenes
Send for Paul Temple Again!
Paul Temple: East of Algiers
Paul Temple and the Kelby Affair
Paul Temple and the Harkdale Robbery
Paul Temple and the Curzon Case
Paul Temple and the Margo Mystery
Paul Temple and the Madison Case
Light-Fingers: A Paul Temple Story (e-only)
A Present from Paul Temple (e-only)
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London, SE1 9GF, UK
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
http://www.harpercollins.com
Paul Temple and the Geneva Mystery Page 14